


Apocalypse | The Reckoning

by SprinkleSparke



Category: Harry Styles - Fandom, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Daddy Issues, Dark Louis Tomlinson, F/F, F/M, Forced Marriage, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Prince Harry Styles, Slow Burn, Well…it’s kind of the end of the world, so a lot of angst and fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 02:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11348409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SprinkleSparke/pseuds/SprinkleSparke
Summary: Apocalypse AU in which Harry is a sad prince and Louis a lost survivor with a dark secret.Clare is bad ass fighter and Sarah is a princess who definitely can save herself.The world as we know it was destroyed in 2033 by a supernatural power.What remained was divided into three kingdoms.Every five years, a civilian is selected to explore the world outside the security zone. So far, no one has ever returned, and Clare, a simple girl, which best friend is Harry, who is the heir of the throne, are chosen to save the world.





	Apocalypse | The Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, darlings!
> 
> My first fic on here...wow. I've been writing them since forever and now I will share them for the first time. :)  
> My Tumblr is sprinklesparke.tumblr.com if you have further questions or want to stay informed about this fic.  
> This story is told in two POV’s and my native language is not English (forgive my mistakes) and I’m still trying to figure out how to post on here…so it’s a work in progress. (I would love to hear feedback anyways ♡)
> 
> This story will be very adventurous, so buckle up and enjoy.

**Chapter 1: The peace festival**

**Clare:**

The sky was orange, as we finally sat in the bus.  
We had managed to get a four-seater.  
My long legs bumped into Harry’s long legs.  
The place next to me remained free.  
It has always been like that, and that’s how it should be. Since last year, however, it has become more difficult to meet…to continue this tradition.  
Since last year, a lot had happened.  
I watched Harry carefully.  
He hated it when I gave him this look, but I couldn’t help but worry. His dull green eyes, which had once been radiant, stared out the window. He had thrown a hood over his brown curls to hide the crown. As a prince, it was his duty to wear it and the crown was really beautiful!  
Golden, with bronze flowers and tiny gemstones, but I know that Harry would like to melt the crown in the oven, to process the crown into a dagger and then kill his father with it.

 _Okay_ , that was perhaps a bit exaggerated. But only a little. Normally, he didn’t even dare to raise his eyes when he was in a room with his father, the king.  
I would rather do stabbing to be honest.  
His rebellion attempts, on the other hand, were more than harmless, such as letting his hair grow, so that it could reach his chin. The king, and even my mother, thought it was ‘unkempt and dirty’, but all the girls in my school thought the Prince was irresistible.  
Whenever Jennifer, from my art class, brought the latest magazine with Harry Edward Styles III. on the front cover with her, everyone was swooning and screaming.  
I always tried to hide my laughing when that happened.   
If they only knew, that the royal successor was my best friend.

A year ago this had not been the case. Johnny had been there a year ago.       Johnny was Harry’s older brother, who would have been the heir to the throne.  
If I would ever say Johnny’s name in Harry’s presence...I would probably break our friendship.  
Since he disappeared, saying his name was like spitting poison.

After the great “world crisis”, as it was carefully called by other superficial adults, the world had collapsed.  
I mean literally.  
Whole parts of countries were torn apart.  
On November 13, 2033, an unknown power had been released.  
Suddenly, natural catastrophes went up, people who were loving each other suddenly broke loose, monsters, which were previously only known from stories, raged on earth, epidemics broke out, killing…It was hell on earth better expressed.  
Literally the Apocalypse.  
This was basically the first thing we got taught at our school.

The second thing you learn in our school, is that the land where the remnants of mankind still lived was saved and secured by Jonathan Edward Styles.  
He became the king of our new world, divided it into three kingdoms, and Harry had the misfortune to be born in the same blood line as him. All in all, there are three kingdoms, but the one ruled by King Styles, Harry’s father had the power of our world.  
In short, he’s the real boss here.

I know that people used to live in a monarchy, that democracy ruled for the most part, and why aren’t we doing it now?  
Because the people had mistaken the “savior” Jonathan Styles, apparently for a strange God or something.  
If you ask me…it’s ridiculous.  
If you ask me, but I’m not asked.  
If my teachers or mother knew I thought that way, they would probably faint.  
At least, I still have Harry by my side. Remember the dagger? The one he would love to use to kill his father? It’s perhaps more serious than it sounds funny.

“Clare!”

Harry kicked me with his ridiculous cowboy boots and completely pulled me away from my thoughts. Yes, if one would try to describe his style, the word hipster would be still understating. Annoyed, I looked at him with a frown.  
We had weekend.  
I was certainly allowed to at least day-dream a bit. “Just look out the window,” he said with that stupid grin, which gave him dimples in his cheeks. I had to twist my head halfway to look out of the bus window.  
To be semi-blind on the left eye gave me a few extra neck muscles.

It was raining. As if someone had poured a bucket from above. It was incredibly loud. “It’s strange that it’s always raining the day before the Peace Festival, isn’t it?” Harry breathed and painted a heart on the misted window.  
I snorted. “Okay Romeo, now would you like to perform a poem about your miserable childhood for me?”  
He kicked me on the foot without caution. "Oh, shit, since when have cowboy boots heels!?”  
“Maybe you should pay more attention in history class. Cowboys invented them!,” he said snappily.  
“You know how long ago the cowboy area was? The 90s were better!”  
I raised an arm to clarify my point. “I tell you, the music was much better then,” I added, thinking of the old cassette recorder in the museum, which still had a cassette of an old band called _Nirvana_. Harry just shook his head and crossed his legs.  
“Did you know that in the early Wild West, the first shooting weapons were invented?”, he said quietly, his voice was filled with fear, and it really was frightening that there were once times where weapons existed, which could kill people with only a small finger movement. Today there were only knives and sharp blades.

I shrugged.  
“You’re the one from the royal family, Haz. For years, it’s been rumored that your father is hiding a colt in your cellars.”  
Before he could look at me with one of his death glares, the bus stopped water-splashing.  
“Damn, this shirt was brand new,” Harry cursed as the bus doors opened slowly.  
“Don’t cry, the festival is in a few hours. They will re-dress you anyway!”  
Firmly, I grabbed his hand and we ran as fast as we could through the rain from the bus stop to my house. My mother pulled us quickly into the house as I rang the door.  
My home was nothing special. A detached house with a boring garden and a boring neighborhood.  
I’d rather go to Harry’s, to explore the many aisles in his castle, but if anyone would see me there, the guy would get a lot of trouble.  
His family was very old-fashioned, with the term ‘girl’ and simply 'friend’. Harry had been promised to marry the Princess of the Northern Kingdom since he was thirteen.  
So we spent most of our time in my room.

“My goodness, how do you two look like? The festival is in three hours and you’re wet to the bones. And you, Miss, do not have your contact lens in! Someday this will have consequences and you’re going to get yourself killed! ”, my mother scolded with her hands on the hips. She already had her festival gown on, which consisted of white linen and metal jewelery. Every citizen who was not too poor possessed such a thing. The higher the rank, the more splendid was the jewelery.  
Harry pushed his hood down and the crown was flashing in his damp hair.  
My mother sucked a sharp breath in as she saw this and immediately dropped an awkward courtsey. “Oh, my prince … I’m sorry I-”  
“Mom!”, I interrupted and had to squeeze in a laugh, when I saw how red Harry’s cheeks got. One might think he had become accustomed to such formalities, but he was always embarrassed in such situations.  
“It’s just Haz, you’ve known him for years, this crown does not change anything!”  
“-I-I,” my mom stuttered still bowing, but we had already slithered past her.  
“How I hate this thing …”, Harry murmured as he walked up the stairs and carelessly tore the crown off his head. Now that he was inside, he was allowed to take it off.

“B-but my prince!”, I mocked my mother. Laughing, he smashed one of the towels, Mom had pushed in our hands, in my face.  
“Hey, Maddie,” he greeted my little sister, who was sitting on my laptop (not allowed, I might add). Her blond mane, which resembled mine very much, rocked around. She quickly tried to flip the laptop down, but it was too late. I had seen it. “How often, Maddie, that’s not yours, just ask before you go.”  
She rolled her eyes and said, “And where were you two again? Let me guess, such nerds as you are, you’ve been hiding in the library.”  
Harry and I exchanged a quick look and Maddie snapped. “I knew it, the school girl and the prince in the library…If the tabloid magazines knew that…They think their beloved prince secretly parties with thousands of girls, but in reality he goes with my sister to the shitty library and reads. This is gold!”

I kicked a couple of clothes in a corner and searched my hair dryer. Yes, my little sister was quite nerve-racking for her age of twelve, but also very clever.  
“Please-” Harry pushed a curl behind his ear, the tone of his voice was painful.  
Maddie rolled her eyes again and jumped up. “Now don’t be stupid, Harry, I’m not going to tell anyone,” Harry slumped on my bed.  
“-I need to get changed into the gown now, and you should, too,” she continued, strutting out of my room. Besides her, there was only me. And our Mom who was working as a secretary. A family of women power with a touch of despair. The perfect blend.

Harry sighed deeply, and I wanted to get him off my bed, so he wasn’t dripping on my mattress, but I didn’t bring it over me when I saw his gaze.  
I knew exactly what he was thinking about. Today was a special day. First of all, the “peace festival”, which was every five years, was held today, in which a person is chosen to cross the secure zone, the safe three kingdoms, to seek after a kind of healing that could have the answers to what the world decomposed into ash and chaos.  
It was the most important day ever, and I only had one peace festival that I remembered. In addition, it was the first time a solstice was at the same time, as the festival. In my opinion that doesn’t mean much, but all the others, even the king, had the hope that this time, a chosen one could really save us all.  
This time, someone would come back, so far no chosen one had ever returned from their expedition. In addition too, today was the anniversary of Harry’s big brother, Johnny’s disappearance from last year.  
After this incident, my best friend suddenly fell into the position of the heir apparent, and Harry hated it.  
So I honestly could not imagine what was going on inside Harry’s head.

“He will force me to carry this stupid sword,” he muttered miserably in my pillow, the sound of my dryer turned his words into an incomprehensible bubbling. Still, I knew what he was talking about, because he had been talking my ears off with this for weeks.  
“I can only repeat it, I don’t know why you hate swords. It’s so cool that you have one, and besides-” my voice went an octave lower and I wobbled stupidly my eyebrows up and down. “Your fiance will also be there!” My brush tangled itself in my hair and Harry panicked.

“No, no, no, I almost forgot … I’m supposed to make the official proposal today, Clare!”  
My eyes widened and a dull feeling spread in my stomach.  
Not because I wanted to be in the place of the Princess, but this engagement meant I could not see Harry anymore. “Shit, how could you forget that?”, I shouted, pulling on my brush.  
“I don’t know, I’ve put the whole thing in the back of my head, it wasn’t important…My God, I only met her once and I was thirteen and we sat awkwardly beside each other during a fancy dinner.”, he said without taking air. “I have to go, Constance only covers me for a few hours and I’m late for dressing.”  
Without letting me speak a single word, Harry rushed out of my room with tired eyes. Constance was his maid and definitely belonged to the “C-Club”. A great name that I had came up with. A great pun, right? It could not be a coincidence that nearly everyone who was nice to Harry had a name that started with C and was lower class.

So I was sitting there just before the festival.  
The hairbrush in my blond strands tangled, my best friend already nearly married with eighteen and a selection that was able to change our entire future.  
The day could only get better.


End file.
